In the News

SAN FRANCISCO -- Google, Amazon and Microsoft stocks soared after strong quarterly reports Thursday. The stock portfolios for millions of Americans rose on the news, but some rose more than others.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates remained the richest person on the planet, with a personal fortune of $79.3 billion, according to Forbes' list of the world's billionaires.

That's in spite of the efforts he and his wife Melinda have made to give the money away, totalling more than $29 billion so far.

On Thursday Gates made another $1.1 billion, according to Bloomberg's rankings of the world's richest people. Microsoft's stock (MSFT) was up 10.57% at mid-day on Friday.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos's personal fortune was up $3.2 billion Friday to $53 billion, making him the world's fifth richest person, and the third richest in the United States, according to Forbes. Amazon stock (AMZN) was up 7.11% Friday

Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin also made a pretty penny, $2.4 and $2.3 billion respectively, according to Forbes.

Stock in Google's parent company Alphabet (GOOGL) was up 9.23% Friday.

Page and Brin rank as 13th and 14th on Forbes' list, with fortunes worth $36.7 and $36 billion each.

Mark Zuckerberg fared well also. According to Bloomberg's ranking of the world's richest people, his personal fortune was up $1.1 billion. He is number seven on the list, with $44.2 billion.

While few are in the stratosphere range of these tech titan, the number of wealthy Americans is rising.

In 2014, more than 9 million households had a net worth of $1 million or more, 1.24 million households were worth more than $5 million and 132,000 households had at least $25 million, according to a report on affluent markets by the Spectrem Group.